possible idea of the state of society to which they could have
been adapted. One exception there was, however, in a very
antique elbow-chair, with a high back, carved elaborately in oak,
and a roomy depth within its arms, that made up, by its spacious
comprehensiveness, for the lack of any of those artistic curves
which abound in a modern chair.

As for ornamental articles of furniture, we recollect but two, if
such they may be called. One was a map of the Pyncheon territory
at the eastward, not engraved, but the handiwork of some skilful
old draughtsman, and grotesquely illuminated with pictures of Indians
and wild beasts, among which was seen a lion; the natural history
of the region being as little known as its geography, which was
put down most fantastically awry. The other adornment was the
portrait of old Colonel Pyncheon, at two thirds length, representing
the stern features of a Puritanic-looking personage, in a skull-cap,
with a laced band and a grizzly beard; holding a Bible with one hand,
and in the other uplifting an iron sword-hilt. The latter object,
being more successfully depicted by the artist, stood out in far
greater prominence than the sacred volume. Face to face with this
picture, on entering the apartment, Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon came
to a pause; regarding it with a singular scowl, a strange
contortion of the brow, which, by people who did not know her,
would probably have been interpreted as an expression of bitter
anger and ill-will. But it was no such thing. She, in fact, felt
a reverence for the pictured visage, of which only a far-descended
and time-stricken virgin could be susceptible; and this forbidding
scowl was the innocent result of her near-sightedness, and an
effort so to concentrate her powers of vision as to substitute a
firm outline of the object instead of a vague one.